Scientists hoping to understand and eventually reverse damage to the

Scientists hoping to understand and eventually reverse damage to the fragile ozone layer in the Earth's upper atmosphere used a spacecraft to conduct crucial experiments. These experiments drew criticism from a group of environmentalists who observed that a single trip by the spacecraft did as much harm to the ozone layer as a year's pollution by the average factory, and that since the latter was unjustifiable so must be the former.

Simple argument here: We are told that one thing is unjustifiable because it is similar to another harmful, somewhat analogous idea. But it fails in one, big respect: one is helpful in trying to prevent or identify the issue at hand, and the other just contributes to the issue. So they are not 100% analogous. Let's try and find an answer that, hopefully, hits on this issue.

The reasoning in the environmentalists' criticism is questionable because it:

A. Treats as similar two cases that are different in a critical respect -- Almost word for word what we need. They are not analogous because one can improve the situation. Bingo!

B. Justifies generalization on the basis of a single instance -- Let's break this down, quickly. The generalization is that the rocket is bad because of the one example, which is an average. So this isn't one instance. Out.

C. Fails to distinguish the goal of reversing harmful effects from preventing those harmful effects -- This talks about the mission itself. And sure, technically this isn't talked about. But this isn't our issue. Just because this is technically true, does not mean that this is what is at fault in our argument. If I say baseball player A is the best baseball player in the world, and someone else says it is player B, we are disputing who is better. If someone says, "no wait, player C is better than A and B", this doesn't resolve anything in our original argument, just like this comment doesn't resolve the issue. We are looking at two causes of pollution. This is the heart of our argument.

D. Attempts to compare two quantities that are not comparable in any way -- We're talking about the same type of pollution. Out.

E. Presupposes that experiments always do harm to their subjects -- So a science experiment in a high school is causing issues? Nope. Nowhere is this said, so out.